Robert Ring points us to the news that Hollywood studios are now threatening to stop selling DVDs in Spain, and are blaming “piracy.” Specifically, Michael Lynton, of Sony Pictures, the guy who insists that nothing good has come from the internet, is claiming:
“Spain is on the brink of no longer being a viable home-entertainment market for us.”
I’m really curious how Lynton keeps his job when his response to a market challenge is to leave the market entirely, shifting the unauthorized rate from whatever it is all the way up to 100% by choice. This is the same guy who claimed that the internet was killing the movie business, in the midst of a year with more movie releases than ever before and the largest box office take ever. He’s also in charge of the company that wouldn’t even support one of its own movies for the Oscars because it was afraid that the Oscar reviewer copies would end up online, even though the movie was already available for download.
This is a CEO who seems to want to blame everyone else for his own failures in giving people a reason to buy. He’s blaming the internet when the real issue is his own inability to figure out how to provide scarce value that people want to pay for. I can’t imagine how the board meetings go: “Hey, so how are you capitalizing on this massive increase in movie interest?” “Ah, well, we’re dropping out of markets because the kids download.” How do you manage to lead a company when your response to a boom in interest in your business is to take away one of the reasons to buy and then to blame the people who want your product? It’s astounding.
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